Stowaway
Do you love flying but hate the pre-flight and airport nonsense? With Stowaway, you can forget about all that and put yourself in a window seat right away. I tried it and put myself in the pilot’s seat, and there are numerous options for views. The sound is pretty much what you’d hear in-flight, and it’s a fun way to experience flying into other countries without all the hassle. It also appears to be free.
WindowSwap
Developed during quarantine in 2020, this is a fun way to experience a different view, especially if you live somewhere without much of a view through your kitchen window. It used to be free, but now requires a monthly subscription.
Radio Garden
I didn’t realise there were so many radio stations around the world, and Radio Garden exemplifies that fact. Just hover over a country, a list of stations appears, and you tune in. It’s as simple as that and free too!
The Useless Web
Every time you hit PLEASE on The Useless Web, you’re taken to a different and completely random website, most of which are completely useless. I was sent to a pug dog wrapped in a rug, another where I had to drag pebbles across the sand, and a hilarious one called Always Judge A Book By Its Cover.
This is a real book, by the way, but it is an example of a thoroughly useless way to while away your time.
Neal.fun
Neal Fun is packed with crazy, time-wasting websites, and I landed on Asteroid Launcher where I launched a 500m-wide asteroid at some random location in Buenos Aires, and the results were chilling. The site actually tells you all about the destruction caused, so it seems to me to be a ‘use-once’ scenario!
This is just a tiny selection of what the internet does really well – before social media ruined it (I borrowed that phrase) – and you could literally spend years trawling through some wonderful and also totally useless stuff, so here are a few others – all you have to do is search for ’50 sites you’ll spend far too long on’ and Bob’s your uncle.
Zoom Earth, Google Earth, and one of my favourites, Submarine Cable Map. Why? Because I always wondered.
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